Fifth Sunday of Easter by Fr. Guerric Heckel

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Phone: (843) 761-8509

Visitors are welcome at Mepkin Abbey, which is privately owned and is home for Trappist monks. Living according to the Rule of St. Benedict, the monks offer hospitality to strangers. At Mepkin, that means that the abbey’s gardens are open daily from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. The Reception Center/Gift Shop is open Tuesday – Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and on Sundays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. (closed on Mondays); guided tours to the Abbey Church are offered Tuesday through Saturday at 11:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. (See details below) To maintain their lives of prayer, silence, privacy and solitude, the monks have a few important requests of all visitors:

• Upon arrival, please check in at the Reception Center/Gift Shop.

• Read and abide by all signs.

• Only two roads are open to the public: the main road which runs from the entrance to the public gardens, and the road which leads to the Reception Center & Store. Please stay on these two roads.

• Dogs must be on leashes at all times. (Please pick up after your dog.)

• Access to the Abbey church is by guided tour only. This access is limited because the church is in the monastic enclosure, the heart of the monastery.

• No professional photography allowed.

Tours

Guided tours to the Abbey Church are 11:30 AM and 3:00 PM Tuesdays to Saturdays. Tours are $5 per person (children and students free) which includes a guidebook of either the Gardens or the Monastery. (Note: The guided church tours include a walk from the Reception Center to the Abbey Church, a distance of about a quarter of a mile.) Reservations required for groups of 10 or more.

Visitors may enjoy the public gardens at their leisure.

Reception Center/Gift Shop

Once a month, on a Friday, the monks have a day of total silence and solitude. They call these the “Desert Days” and no tours of the monastery are given on these days. However, the Reception Center/Gift Shop and the gardens are open.

Upcoming Desert Days:

January 11
February 8
March 15
April 12
May 3
June 7
July 5
August 2
September 6
October 4
November 8
December 20

Mepkin Affiliate Program

Some branches produce fruit and are pruned, cared for and nurtured. Some branches do not produce fruit and are removed, thrown away and burned.

We are a people of productivity. It is, for the most part, the standard by how we live and the measure of our success. It is built into our lives everywhere. Productivity is the basis of our economic system. Those who produce are rewarded and get more. Those who do not produce are thrown out. I am hearing from more people that they are being let go because they cannot work as fast as younger folks. Meanwhile, other elders are doing everything they can to make it look like they are productive. The extent to which you can “pass” for someone in prime productive years, you are admirable.

Within our educational system the students who do well and produce are recognized and supported while those who do not produce get lost in the system. Professors know well the mantra, “Publish or perish.” Careers and promotions are based on productivity. Productivity at some level is at the core of the debates around poverty, welfare, healthcare, and the elderly. “They” do not produce and our care of and for them often reflects what we think of that.

We have been convinced that productivity is the goal and only the fittest survive. I wonder if that isn’t how many of us live our spiritual lives. How many of us have been told, in some form or fashion, or come to believe that pruned branches go to heaven and removed branches go to hell? Pruned branches produced so they are rewarded while non-productive branches are punished.

In that (mis)understanding fruit is God’s demand upon our life and the means by which we appease God. If we are not careful we’ll get stuck categorizing ourselves and one another into fruit bearing or non-fruit bearing branches. There is, however, a deeper issue than the production of fruit. Productivity does not usually create deep abiding and intimate relationships. It creates transactions. Jesus is not talking about or demanding productivity. He wants and offers connectivity, relationship, and intimacy.

Fruit or the lack thereof is a manifestation of our interior life and health. It describes and reveals whether we are living connected or disconnected lives. Fruit production is the natural consequence of staying connected. You can see that in long-term friendships, marriages, community loyalty. We do not choose whether or not we produce fruit. We do, however, choose where we abide and how we stay connected.

You know how that is. Sometimes we lose touch with a particular person. We no longer know where he or she is, what she is doing, or what is happening in her life. One day we run into him or her. It’s a bit awkward. No one is sure what to say. There’s not much to talk about. There was no deep abiding presence, the connection is lost, and it seems as if what was has been thrown away. Other people we run into after five or ten years and the conversation immediately picks up where we left off those many years ago. Even though we were apart we never left each other. There was and remains a connection and mutual abiding that time, distance, and the circumstances of life cannot sever.

“What fruit am I producing?” “How much?” “Is it an acceptable quality?” Those are good questions if we understand and ask them diagnostically, as questions not about the quantity of our lives but the quality of our lives. That’s what Jesus is after. That is the deeper question he is asking. It is the invitation to join the conversation, jump into the game, to participate, and to live fully alive. That only happens when the life, the love, and the goodness and holiness of Christ flow in us. We become an extension of and manifest his life, love, and holiness.

It is a relationship of union even as a branch is united to the vine. We live our lives as one. This is not just about relationship with Jesus; it affects and is the basis for our relationships with one another. Love for Jesus, one another, and ourselves become one love. We soon discover we are living one life and the fruit of that life and love is abundant, overflowing, and Father glorifying.

Vocation Thought for the Day

“… and they dropped their nets and followed Jesus.” What have I allowed to keep me from following the Lord’s call?